Evaluation of cardiovascular risk factors, events, and costs across four BMI categories

The purpose of this study was to analyze the 1-year cost of cardiovascular (CV) events by body mass index (BMI) subgroups from a US employer health plan perspective.

Patients aged 20-64 years from the GE Centricity Electronic Medical Record, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, and MarketScan databases were used to determine prevalence of risk factors (RFs) and CV events and 1-year costs. Risk factors included hypertension (HTN), diabetes, and hyperlipidemia (HLD) and CV events included myocardial infarction, angina, heart failure, and stroke. CV event costs were determined from claims by ICD-9 code in patients with overweight/obesity.

Of 220,136 patients identified in GE, BMI was 25-26.9 in 19.4%, 27-29.9 in 30.4%, 30-34.9 in 27.9%, and ≥35 in 22.3%. Patients with diabetes, HTN, and HLD increased with BMI from 1.8% (25-26.9) to 11.4% (≥35) in males and 1.1% to 6.8% in females. Prevalence of CV events increased from 0.1% with no RFs up to 10.2% with multiple RFs. The average 1-year cost per patient increased from $1122 to $2383 as BMI increased.

Patients with higher BMI values had an increased prevalence of RFs and CV events, which lead to higher average 1-year costs.